Premiere Watch: Argon

Premiere Watch: Argon

If there was ever a time for a drama to premiere at its most socially relevant moment, this would be it. Newsroom drama Argon is premiering on cable network tvN on the same day that producers and journalists at public broadcasters KBS and MBC are going on strike in protest against politically-motivated news censorship. Talk about your serendipitous timing.

Reasons to watch: Film darling Chun Woo-hee is known to be pretty choosy about her projects, so it raised my interest level quite a bit when she signed on to star. She’ll play the rookie investigative journalist to Kim Joo-hyuk’s principled news anchor, and they’ll be part of the hard-hitting broadcast news team that only goes after the truth. It’s obviously very similar in theme to SBS’s current journalism drama Falsify, though here we have a broadcast television focus—a bit more commonplace in dramaland, but also more directly relevant to the strikes going on at the big networks.

I’m liking Falsify, so Argon will definitely have to make a big impression to stand out since it could be journalism overkill for some. But I’m thinking that the ripped-from-the-headlines feel of it will only fuel interest.

Cheese in the Trap and Coffee Prince PD Lee Yoon-jung is at the helm, which is a plus and a minus at the same time, given how different the first and second halves of her last drama turned out. But her dramas do have the potential to be thoughtful and well done, so here’s hoping that the short episode count means that all eight episodes will be first-half quality.